


Siren

by ImperfectSilence



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27432277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImperfectSilence/pseuds/ImperfectSilence
Summary: For centuries, sailors talked about the monsters who lived under the waves. Voices who cried out for them in the storms. People who promised them everything, who begged for them to help. A twisted curse, calling them to their deaths. These creatures were called Sirens.Shepard died in an attack from an unknown vessel. The crew escaped and watched as the Normandy burned and crashed down on Alchera. Months later, the voices started. Or rather, one voice. Hers.
Kudos: 7





	Siren

**Author's Note:**

> Happy N7 day! Another year, another new fic and not an update. Maybe one day I'll finish something. But until then, have a bittersweet, creepy intergalactic haunting. Let me know what y'all think!
> 
> Props to Ashley Serene for her lovely cover of Jolly Sailor Bold that inspired this. Here's the link for atmosphere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPLodwT58nE

He hears her voice sometimes. In the hard vacuum of space, floating between airlocks as they affect repairs after the last attack. When he lays down to sleep, in the silence of the bunkroom. He feels a hand caress his cheek, soft lips press to his forehead.

He’s standing guard at his post, bored out his mind, but still paying attention because he’s a good sailor, a good soldier. People pass by in the hall, all sorts of aliens, but mostly humans. They’re hashing out terms of another agreement on the Citadel, and he drew short straw. One of the joys of rank, or discrimination against biotics. He can’t be sure what it is, but either was he’s stuck here until-

He sees her in the crowd, red hair casually tossed over her shoulder, half turned away from him. She’s halfway across the plaza, but he knows that scar on her neck like the back of his hand. He’s traced it so many nights, lying next to her as they both try and sleep. He can’t leave his post, but he is so sure that it’s her.

Four days later, he’s eating in the mess. The galley chief slips him in after hours, knowing that he needs more calories to function but that the other crew won’t stand for him receiving extra rations. It’s dark, barely lit by the emergency lighting. He’s alone, not even the galley chief around this late.

“So why’d you do it?” she asks, whispers in his ear. He turns, but of course she’s not there. It’s only him in here.

“You left me there. Alone. Why’d you leave?” he can smell her hair, feel her breath on his neck. Goosebumps rise up on his neck as the hair on his arm pricks up.

“I- I had to. The Normandy was down, everyone was in the pods. The other ship was coming around, we stood no chance if we stayed.” He protests.

“I can buy that excuse from Wrex, from Liara. But from you?” she sounds disappointed in a way he had almost forgotten she was capable of. A way that stung and left him feeling cold and hollow.

“Commander, I-“

“Who’re you talking to Lieutenant?” The captains voice cuts through the dark, “More importantly, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I can explain.” He stammers out.

“Sure you can.” She whispers, and he feels her nails trail across the back of his neck. He can see her standing there, arms crossed and unimpressed, daring him to try and get out of this one.

After the captain finishes chewing him out, Kaidan goes to the bathrooms and checks his reflection carefully. Across the back of his neck, faint as all can be are three curved scratches. The type left by one weapon in the galaxy- a woman’s nails.

* * *

“Two more, about to come through the door.” He takes the warning automatically, nerves and instincts forged by far too many firefights, implicitly trusting the person. The door slides open and the two mercs who were trying to flank him get caught in the burst from his rifle. He goes back to picking them off from range, working overwatch for the rest of his team, but something niggles in the back of his head.

It’s only after the firefight is over, when they’re policing bodies and checking cargo to see what they busted that it hits him. How did they know the mercs were there?

“Butler, who was watching the cameras?” He asks, quietly nudging his second in command.

“Boss, you were the only one not down here. Layra had something else she had to take care of tonight, remember? Why do you ask?” Butler says easily, concern in his eyes.

“It’s nothing. Never mind.” He says, “When you finish rifling through all of this, medical goes to that new clinic in the slums. Weapons we ship back to base or market carefully. Explosives-“

“This isn’t our first raid. What’s gotten into you?” Butler asks, cutting him off.

“I don’t know, but something’s off.” He says, walking away and leaving Butler to it. The exit is by the same building he was perched in, and he detours to check again. The mercs came up the stairs through a window they busted out on the ground floor. He follows the broken glass and bent panels. Up the stairs, down the hall and stacked by the door. They were all set to ambush him, either when he came out or when he was distracted. In the middle of picking mercs off like he was, they likely would have caught him by surprise. This could have been the end of his story. He looks out from his sniping perch once more, surveying the shattered battlefield.

“too close.” He mumbles, turning and walking out. It’s by chance that he checks the hall, expecting to see a camera to wave for as thanks.

There are no cameras in the hall. Nor the stairwell. In fact, the whole building lacks an internal security system of any sort.

So who warned him?

He pushes it from his mind and moves on, chalking it up to strange luck or intuition from years and years of high stakes firefights.

A month and a half later, he’s undercover in a club, working some Suns. He’s almost got them to give up where they’re storing the latest shipment of red sand. He’s bought them three rounds so far, and it’s going good. He turns to the bartender to order round four and a chill runs down his spine. His fringe wavers slightly.

“You’re blown. Get out of there!” He changes his order immediately and makes to leave. The two suns draw pistols and he has to think fast to stay alive. He throws a glass at one of them before diving on the other, wrestling for the gun.

“No time! Run for it!” He springs up, leaving the fight and sprints for the door. Palming the button, the door spring open. On the other side is a suns kill squad, half geared up and not at all expecting him to be here. He jumps over their other gear and runs, bullets pinging off the walls around him. He’s nearly at the corner when something yanks his arm and he stumbles. A loud crack echoes in the corridor, a hole punched through the plate of the wall. He scrambles to regain his balance and makes it around the corner, diving into the crowds outside and vanishing.

“That round would have punched right through my shields.” He thinks to himself as he rides the public transport, careful not to look anyone in the eyes. No need to borrow trouble tonight. Well, not any more than he already has.

He stops and gets off seven stops later, ready to start picking his way back to the hideout. In the press of the crowd, someone bumps him,

“Hell, am I always going to be pulling your ass out of the fire? You really need to start paying me back.”

“Yeah, yeah. I will one day Shepard.” He says automatically, before freezing in the terminal. The crowd thins out, and he’s standing in the dim lights alone.

* * *

The waves wash over the sand, lapping and crashing on the beach. The ruins are half sunken, unveiled by a recent storm but valuable all the same. She’s crouched in the surf, pants wet but uncaring as she carefully pries at the fragile bits and pieces still sucked in the wet sand.

The artifacts are valuable, yes, but in truth she’s bored here. As much as she hates to admit it, returning to the quiet of field work and ancient ruins is a harsh departure from the firefights and wild chases that she had been on. High stakes espionage on Noveria, chasing geth way from prothean terminals on Feros. The combined weight of the galaxy, rushing through the relay to hit the Reaper with everything that have-

Crouching in the sand, warm sun beating down on her shoulders, far from gunfire or explosions, biotics carefully reigned in to gently massage and pull, a far cry from the singularities and massive fields she conjured for the crew. For nearly a century she’d know the kind of life she wanted, had known her future path. Expeditions and theories, backed by long hours of research and papers. Wine and staring at the stars, demanding they answer her questions, that they reveal the secrets of the race long gone.

But it all changed in a flash of crimson hair, a rifle held in one hand as she typed on the keypad for the laser. Nearly four months of work, of subtle, slow, and careful creeping into the ruins, not disturbing anything- focused on preservation. Then, in an instant, all of it gone Heavy boots crashing through relics, disturbing lines and connection carefully scrawled in the stone. Gunfire and explosions tearing apart walls and floors that had held up for thousands of years- and the surge of magma behind them as everything was consumed and purged by the Protheans final failsafe.

She hadn’t even grabbed her toothbrush- not her pictures, the drafts of her research, her notes. All she stepped onto the ship with was the pistol she’d carried against varren, her suit, and one half filled datapad she’d been tapping notes on before the system activated.

Those days had been the best of her life, and she hated that. She hated missing the danger, missing the gunfire and headaches and desperation. Missed being shot at, being blown up, threatened, attacked, hit, bit. Missed the strange foods and the weird questions, the horrors of deplorable people, the xenophobia and racism. (Okay, she didn’t miss that quite as much.)

But she missed all of it, missed everything, and hated that she did. She was supposed to be content with her lot in life, fine with returning to the quiet and calm of archeology.

“You’ll never be happy like this.” The voice whispered, softly and intimately, breath wet ad hot on her ear. She froze, her mind telling her one thing and hear ears another.

“You’re wasted sitting out here, far away from where you thrive. All your brain, your skill, your grace and you sit in the water and play with broken toys. Worse, you’re not even happy.” A pair of arms wrap around her from behind, hugging her close.

“It’s time you stop accepting broken trinkets and start demanding real tools. You’re the preeminent expert on the Protheans and the Reapers- act like it.” The warmpth vanishes and Liara stands abruptly, startling the other techs.

“I’m headed to camp. Finish excavating these artifacts and ready them for shipment.” She says.

“Where are you going?” Willa, her understudy, asks.

“I’m not sure yet. Maybe Illium.”

* * *

He knew the opening the second barrel was a bad idea. The first one had gone quick enough, and been clean. Nothing weird, no glowing, just a nice buzz. But of course, that wasn’t enough for him. He had to call for the second barrel, and now a ghost is sitting across from him, filling her glass.

“You look like shit.” She says, eyeing him as she sets the pitcher back to floating in the cask.

“Yeah, well you’re dead.” He grunts back, pawing at the pitcher and trying to pour some in his glass. He splashes most of it on the table, but his glass if full when he drops the pitcher back in the barrel.

“Like that would really stop me.” She scoffs, holding up her glass.

It takes him two tries, but he clinks his own on her and they drink.

“You are a stubborn little pyjack.” He laughs, setting the glass down with a clatter.

Across the table, the chair is empty. But there is a glass sitting across from his upturned one. In the bottom are a few drops of ryncol clinging to the glass. And pressed perfectly on the rim is a lipstick print. A shade he’s only seen on one woman.

* * *

Her head is swimming, suit pumped full of medicine. The readout says her temperature is 103 degrees and climbing. Sweat and other fluids are pooling in her suit. She’s crumpled against the wall in the shadow behind a light, a pistol in her lap, not that she can hold it. Her leg is outstretched, suit torn open and purple blood bubbling weakly as her filter pumps air along. The shard of metal, half coated and half dotted with blood is nearby, spatters and streaks on the permacrete where she threw it.

 _“Damn ambush.”_ She curses, fingers weakly twitching on the pistol as if to grab it. The geth had gotten here first, and then laid in wait for them. They had been strung out, watching for rockets and landmines, far enough apart that a lucky shot wouldn’t get more than two of them. No one expected the Geth to rise from the ground, loose san running off their frames as weapons trained on the separated quarians. They’d lost over half the marines in the first volley. Return fire was sparse, patches of rounds fired blindly and panicked at the rising machines.

She hadn’t panicked. Not at all. It was surreal, how she calmly tapped on her omnitool and activated the drones before pulling her shotgun out from her back and opening fire on the Geth. Between the drones and her shotgun, they cleared out a number of Geth. She was just too nimble for them to target her so close.

But, as the Geth walked closer, they got smarter. She was pinned soon, trapped behind a rock as more advanced from the sides, the rock chipping and flying as they laid fire into it to keep her pinned. Still, she hacked one and sent it into a frenzy, draining a trio who got too close together, sending them crashing to the ground. But even this was doomed as she heard the heavy tread of a prime or destroyer charging toward her. Shields too strong to drain, systems too complex to hack. She gripped her shotgun and prepared to meet her fate.

The rocket had been a godsend, but also her worst nightmare. It broke the advanced Geth platform, sending it crashing down smoking, but shrapnel got her in the leg, and she left a purple smear as she crawled away from the rock.

The marines pumped her full of antibiotic and ran off to engage the Geth as well as complete the mission, but she was left here in this corner defenseless. Defenseless, and so feverish she was hallucinating. That was the only explanation for the woman in black armor kneeing in front of her. Black armor with one red stripe.

“They really did a number on you, didn’t they.”

“Boshtet’sh-“ She slurs, trying to raise her head and failing.

“Hey! No sleeping on me yet crewman. You’ve still got work to do.” The woman commands.

“Yesh, Shepard. But, I’m so, “ she yawns, her vision blurring and going dark before fading back in, “so tired.”

“You’ve got fight to you yet. Got to prove those stuffed suits wrong before you die.” Shepard reminds.

“Fight admirals later. Sleep now.” She groans.

“Suit yourself, vas quitter.” She fights her hands under her shoulder and pushes herself up, blinking away the stars in her vision and pretending she can read the numbers on the inside of her mask.

“ ’m not a quitter. Not vas quitter.” She grumbles.

“Oh? And just who are you supposed to be?”

“ ‘m Tali Zorah vas Normandy, nar Rayya.” She groans, leaning on the wall with one hand and walking toward the end of the hall, the pistol held in front of her.

“Atta girl.”

The marines are shocked when they get back, to find the landing zone of the ship. The area around it is littered with fresh Geth platforms, some still smoking. The entire surface is littered with shattered components, the accumulated detritus from what had to be 50 geth platfroms torn apart. Tali Zorah is not where they left her either, the stilted trail of blood leading up into the ship. She’s passed out by the door to the medbay, pistol still gripped in her offhand. A miracle they say to each other.

None notice the pistol she’s holding is empty, devoid of a clip. It hadn’t been loaded when they passed it over. But, held in the chamber, were five strands of red hair.

* * *

Space was empty. Devoid of light, of mass, of everything at all. Empty and desolate and uncaring. Cutting through it was exhilarating, like nothing he could ever describe. The open skies past the limits of atmosphere, cool and free of all limitations, was home.

Space was the equalizer, the place where his disease didn’t matter, didn’t change anything. There were no Gs in space, no pressure or forces outside of momentum. Pressurized suits and pressurized ships, pods of life held in a narrow and fragile frame of metal, sailing on the cosmic winds.

Space was his real home. Where he truly belonged.

He was flying extra hours, alone in the black when they were supposed to be sleeping. But he’d fractured his toes on his boots that morning, and then his elbow in the shower. The joints twinged even as medigel worked away healing them. It was only out here, devoid of gravity that he didn’t feel it. They twinged, but the weight wasn’t there. The pressure and grinding was gone.

It felt good. Felt right. He smiled, a weak and pitiable thing, but a smile nevertheless.

The comm pinged, and he thought it was flight control, demanding he return to base and be chewed out for an unauthorized fight without a wingman.

“Yeah, I’m coming.” He drawls into the mic, flicking the channel open.

“You better be. But you’re moving too slowly.” The voice says back, one that fills his heart with hope and regret in equal measure.

“What?” It’s all he can say, the only thing that could possibly encompass the whirlwind inside of him.

“You told me you were the fastest and best pilot in the galaxy, so you’d better be there when I arrive. Don’t you dare leave me waiting or let me beat you.” She says with firm conviction.

“But-“

“I don’t want excuses, get it done.” She says, closing the channel.

He drifts for a few minutes longer, the engines dead and the stick unresponsive as the craft rotates.

“Aye, aye commander.” He says softly, almost in disbelief. He cuts the power back on and flies to the hanger, signing the craft back in and limping to the front desk.

“Flight Lieutenant? What are you doing up so early?”

“Handing in my resignation. Something came up, and I’ve got to go pick up a friend.”

“Where from?”

“I don’t really know yet.”

“Then why are you in such a hurry if you don’t even have a destination?”

“Cause I promised her I wouldn’t be late.”


End file.
